[sepin4]

Your conclusion is as subjective as his is. There is no real objective criteria by which the "net negative" could be measured. Even history will not be objective, because it will be written by those in power. However I'm of the same mind as him, that this has been more negative than positive for three reasons:

1) This was a precedent for public shaming without evidence or due process 2) This generally changed the working dynamic between male and female to something extremely formal and sometimes borderline hostile 3) It was a bandwagon for actresses(and eventually other careers) to make money because of 1)

[ookdatnog]

You misread. I did not make any conclusions in my post.

I do lean towards the opposite opinion. But I'm in no position to judge definitively whether the net effect has been positive or negative so far, I'd need to interview a sizeable and representative sample of women for that.

Responding to your points:

1) What's missing from this argument is how we get to this point. IMO, the reason public shaming was used by the movement as a way to achieve justice, is because from their point of view, there was no other way to achieve justice. It's a classic example of "taking matters into their own hands" because the system failed them. Public shaming isn't the end goal, it should be a wake-up call to restore faith in the system.

2) I don't feel like anything meaningful changed in how I interact with female coworkers since metoo. But I only have my own experience to go on, so I won't make any big claims here.

3) Even if this is true (citation needed), it seems irrelevant.

[sepin4]

If your statement is not a conclusion(albeit not a certain one), than what is it?

1) Do you have faith in the newfound public judgement system which by the way uses privately owned platforms for its media? Would you prefer it over the judicial system which has been developing over the past few centuries with all its flaws? Even with its flaws, the alternative for me is a hundred times worse.

3) Some women decided to pursue public figures and since they knew the damage that could be done to their target's image it was settled before court. I don't keep a record of such news and they are usually quickly buried as part of the deal.

[ookdatnog]

> If your statement is not a conclusion(albeit not a certain one), than what is it?

Do you agree that there is a substantial difference between stating "I think/believe X is true" and stating "X is true"?

In my view, you can only honestly use the second form if you can back it up at least somewhat. You don't need 100% certainty, but definitely more than anecdotes.

My first comment in this thread was a criticism of someone using the latter form without backing it up. In a trivial sense it is indeed a conclusion, but not one about the outcome of the #metoo movement, but one about the parent comment: that it asserts a claim with unwarranted confidence.

1) No, I do not have faith in a public shaming based justice system. I also did not argue that this should be the new normal. But our established justice system has evidently been systematically failing women, and it needed a wake-up call to take their grievances seriously. A justice system should never see its own legitimacy as a given: it is kept honest by the knowledge that if people stop seeing it as legitimate, they will seek justice in other avenues.

3) Again, I don't see how this is relevant to the question we are discussing, which is "has #metoo been a net positive for women?" It seems to be an argument for the statement "it has been bad for some men who did not deserve it", but that's a broader question.